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Pregnancy: Unequal Gender Ratio In The United States

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well as enhancing opportunities for couples to have multiple births within one pregnancy. As stated earlier, the birth of mUltiples such as twins, triplets, quadruplets, etc. is exempt from the One-Child Policy since it occurs from one pregnancy. In 2005, a hospital in the eastern city ofNanjing reported a sharp increase in the number of twins and triplets delivered jumping from a yearly average of20 sets to 90 sets (BBC News, 2005:1). The medical advancement of fertility drugs has allowed couples to have better reproductive success, despite the odds against them. The final and maybe most controversial adaptation hailing from the implementation of this policy is the unequal gender ratio (Hesketh and Xing 2006). This unequal gender ratio may …show more content…

In 1981, the sex ratio at birth for the majority of provinces in Mainland China were slightly higher than 106, which is the number generally regarded as the upper limit of a normal SRB (Lai 2005:317). After the subsequent census in 2000, it was found that the sex ratio at birth increased to an extremely high level for all the provinces except one, Xizang which had an SRB of97.43 favoring more females than males. The highest SRB in 2000 was 138.01 in the province of Jiangxi (Lai 2005:320). Additionally, the provinces of Anhui, Henan and Guangdong had each an SRB greater than 130, with several other provinces with an SRB close to 130 (Lai 2005:321). As demonstrated through this census information, China has experienced a great shift in the sex ratio at birth favoring more males than females. In addition, female infanticide is also more common, which decreases the amount of females within the society even …show more content…

This unequal gender ratio may cause many problems for the availability of prospective spouses. There may not be one universal definition of marriage that applies to all societies; however, no matter who constitutes as the spouses in the marriage union, (e.g. male-male, male-female, femalefemale, male-intersex, female-intersex, or multiple partners) there usually tends to be a public ceremony recognizing this relationship, a creation of ties between the two intermarrying families, and specific rights and obligations for each spouse. Ember and Ember define marriage as a "socially approved sexual and economic union, usually between a woman and man" (2007:161). This union is considered to be more or less permanent, whereby including reciprocal rights and obligations between the two (or more) spouses, and between spouses and their future children. Historically, Chinese society has accepted monogamy as the most common form of marriage; however, some forms of polygyny are also present. With the scarcity of females within the population, should China expect to see polyandrous marriage practices emerge? Given the historical context of Chinese preference of sons and male dominance and no current documentation of this practice within China, I believe that the

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